The Man With The X-Ray Eyes!

X - The Man With the X-Ray Eyes is one of those movies that begins as a bit of B-Movie schlock and somewhere along the way makes a left turn into profound. I'm not sure to what extent the makers of the movie knew this, but that's the result nonetheless.

The idea of X-Ray vision is a tantalizing notion which is most reduced to teenage boys grabbing quick glance of girls under their clothes. But while this movie does pay homage to that idea with a goofy scene of a private party in which our hero can see folks in their birthday suits, it's only a passing moment.

Perhaps that has to do with the man, played by veteran actor Ray Milland. Milland brings a gravitas to his role which a lesser actor might well have lacked and so diminished the potential seriousness of the idea of seeing beneath surfaces. And that's the point, we have a doctor here who seems to have a blend of altruism and the usual Frankenstein instincts which inform doctors in low-budget sci-fi, a shouting out for good, but hidden beneath a desire for recognition and sheer confirmation that his work hasn't been in vain. This doctor hits the jackpot and by injecting himself with his miracle drug can see beneath skin and muscles to perform life-saving operations as well catch a glimpse of a pretty dame underneath her knickers. But his mind is changed too and he kills his best friend and has to go into hiding as a carnival act. This leads to an understanding that he can make a killing at the gambling tables and despite the intervention of a worthy woman, he still ends up destroying himself when he sees behind the secret of the universe and cannot bear the sight.

This movie is a Roger Corman effort, an above-average one and one of the very few which was actually adapted to comic book form. Check out this link to get a closer look at the comic. If you haven't seen this movie I highly recommend it, it's a better than you'd think.

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